Marie LaChapelle

Marie-Louise Lachapelle (1 January 1769 – 4 October 1821) was a French midwife, head of obstetrics at the Hôtel Dieu, the oldest hospital in Paris. She published textbooks about women’s bodies, gynecology and obstetrics. She argued against forceps deliveries and wrote Pratique des accouchements, long a standard obstetric text, which promoted natural deliveries. Lachapelle is generally regarded as the mother of modern obstetrics.

Lachapelle was born in Paris to Marie Jonet, a competent midwife, and Louis Dugès, a health official, on 1 January 1769. She was the granddaughter and daughter of midwives. She was the only child and her mother taught her midwifery, which she had learned from her mother, and she quickly became skilled. When she was 15, she performed her first delivery, in which there were complications, though both mother and baby survived thanks to Lachapelle's ministrations. Eight years later, in 1792, she married a surgeon who worked at the Hôpital Saint-Louis. Between 1792 and 1795, she gave birth to a daughter, and stopped working. After her husband's death three years after their marriage, she has to support herself and her daughter, so she worked again as a midwife. Her daughter then broke away from family tradition and became a nun. Lachapelle died of stomach cancer on 4 October 1821 after a short illness.

While her mother was still alive, she had reorganized the maternity ward, and Lachapelle assisted her as associate chief midwife. By the age of twelve, she was performing complicated deliveries and at fifteen, she was able to perform single- handedly a version that was potentially fatal if handled incorrectly. After her mother's death, Lachapelle inherited her mother's position as head of Hôtel-Dieu, the largest public hospital in Paris, in 1797. The hospital served the poor and was supported by Notre Dame de Paris. It was the premier obstetric hospital of its time and was renowned for its school of midwifery. That same year. She spent part of 1796 and 1797 studying obstetrics under Franz Naegele, She was teaching beside the great Professor Baudeloque at the Hotel Dieu.

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